


Setting Fire to Our Insides Just for Fun

by fictionalfeelsandfrustrations



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Character Study, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Smoking, i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-02
Updated: 2013-10-02
Packaged: 2017-12-28 04:52:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/987880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictionalfeelsandfrustrations/pseuds/fictionalfeelsandfrustrations
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a brief character sketch of R, as I see him. I understand that he's a highly subjective character and that not every one will agree with how I see him. But c'est la vie. </p>
<p>This is a modern au, I suppose.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Setting Fire to Our Insides Just for Fun

Grantaire prefers to smoke alone. Admittedly, he prefers to do most things alone, but he _likes_ to smoke alone. That’s the distinction.

Sometimes he walks at night and finds stoops or other covered places and lights up.

He likes being alone with a lighter and not burning himself. He likes being alone with a lighter and using it to light.

He likes watching the smoke come off the end of his cigarette and create delicate, intricate patterns. He likes watching them blow away in the wind.

He likes feeling the smoke leave his lips, his nose. He likes the weight.

He likes inhaling deep, and feeling the smoke in his lungs. He likes the way it fills up some of his empty places. He likes letting it leave his empty places.

He likes watching the ashes jump off the cherry when he flicks his cigarette. He likes watching them scatter and fall and blow away. He likes watching them dance on the pavement.

He likes letting his guard down and letting something into his brain and lungs and nerves. He likes feeling like the cigarette wants to be with him.

He likes the burn at the end of the cigarette, when he’s used it up and it’s letting him know. He likes that the cigarette ends. He likes that it leaves him. He likes that he can light up another just like it.

He likes that he doesn’t have to do it right. He likes that he can flick it in the strange way he has and it’s okay. He likes that he can cough on the smoke a little and it’s okay. He likes that he can take shallow drags or deep ones and it’s okay. He likes being okay.

He likes getting dizzy from the smoke and the lack of oxygen. He likes that he can keep smoking and it keeps happening. He likes that he can take several deep breaths and it stops.

He likes the taste. He likes fire-smoke-ash in his mouth and down his throat and in his lungs and out his nose. He likes the way the heat tastes.

He likes putting cigarettes out. He likes brushing them out gently and watching the coals struggle and die. He likes grinding them out under his heal, quickly. He likes dropping them on the ground and letting them burn out.

He likes the control they hand over to him. Light up. Smoke. Put out. Or don’t.

He likes the smell in his hair and on his clothes and under his fingernails. He likes the musky, dusty, hot, dry smell. He likes the way it transfers to his books and his bed.

He likes wetting the end with his spit. He likes letting it stay dry so it sticks to his lips. He likes barely touching it to his lips. He likes the way it feels intimate.

He likes being alone with a cigarette and feeling like he’s alone with a friend who only wants to help.

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from "Youth" by Daughter.
> 
> Some parts of this are taken from my feelings about smoking and some are purely the Grantaire I envision.


End file.
